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Designing the Virtual Classroom: The Advent of Tele-Immersion
From 1996 to 2001, ANS led and funded the National Tele-Immersion Initiative to connect users at a distance and allow them to play in the same virtual world. Our dream was to create the illusion that people in different places were present in the same room and then let them use any computer backgrounds and simulations they desired to create the reality they chose.
As builders of the Internet, we saw the potential for this new technology to change the way we learn. Tele-immersion is a technology that does exactly what its name implies: It engages all the senses and totally immerses us in our subject matter. And it can be used to create a variety of scenarios and learning environments. The beauty of tele-immersion is that it involves the whole body and mind in the learning process. Chemistry no longer has to be about memorizing tables and abstract properties. Instead, students can walk into a telecubicle and interact with an atomic structure that’s projected in three-dimension. Using a robotic glove, they can actually feel the forces that hold molecules together.
Educators believe that tele-immersion will eventually do away with textbooks and allow kids to step inside a problem and see it from the inside out, making learning more visceral and intuitive. It will also engage a greater portion of the brain-not just the area responsible for logic and linear thought but also the areas that deal with spatial relationships and visual and kinesthetic memory.
Back in the 1996, however, our goal was to create the first national demonstration of the new technology and show how it might enhance creativity and collaboration. As the chief architects and engineering group for Internet2, ANS had access to very high bandwidth, and we were able to use that bandwidth for our experiments. Tele-immersion is the most is the most challenging application of all because it pushes both the speed and the latency (the delay between transmission and reception) of a network to the outer limits.
As the developers of this technology, we envisioned a brave new world where surgeons would guide their colleagues, and even their robots, through complex operations from a distance. Architects would make major changes in building design without having to go on-site or coordinate five sets of blueprints. Archaeologists would be able to “sit in” on remote digs from the comfort of their living rooms. NASA engineers would be able to address operating problems on a space shuttle from the safety of mission headquarters. This technology would also revolutionize distance education. Our best teachers would reach a larder audience, making eye contact with their viewers. One day telecubicles would be built large enough to accommodate music and theater audiences, because this new technology is capable of conveying all the nuances of a live performance.
In 2001, the Los Angeles Times predicted that tele-immersion would lead to a new wave of innovation. “The telecubicle offers a glimpse of the Internet of the future-one that will be liberated from computer monitors and infused with the essential sense of sight, sound, and touch. The goal is to create digital worlds where computer-generated avatars will become realistic stand ins for actual people, surround-sound audio will emulate real-life noises, and force-feedback technology will reveal the shape and texture of physical objects across a computer network.”
ANS spent roughly $10 million to get these new technologies off the ground. And over the past eight years, NSF has invested more that $16 million in tele-immersion, working with the University of Southern California (USC) to make this dream into a reality. At present, USC investigators are studying the details of facial expression-the sly smile, the sarcastic roll of the eyes-so computer models could provide us with better clue about a person’s emotional state. These researchers are also making advances in haptics, or the “technology of touch” that, for example, will allow users of a museum website to feel the surface of a Grecian urn and let online shoppers feel the texture of a coat or shirt. A program called Cybergrasp will also aid in the rehabilitation of stroke patients and provide “visualization exercises” for the blind.
Tim O’Reilly, a blogger who watches the alpha geeks to determine emerging technology trends, has said, “The network is opening up some amazing possibilities for us to reinvent content, reinvent collaboration.” This will promote innovation across the board and give us more eureka moments.
About the Author
Allan H. Weis is the author of The Business of Changing Lives (September 2009), a new book that details the creation and growth of his company, Advanced Network & Services (ANS). He led the ANS team that built the largest and fastest part of the Internet , which provided the underlying network for the National Science Foundation. In 1995, the assets and operations of ANS were sold to America Online Inc. With the proceeds of that sale, ANS became a preeminent force in education and philanthropy. For more information, please consult: www.advanced.org.
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